“Back to the blast furnace”: residents of Mariupol spoke about the revival of the Ilyich plant

In Mariupol, the Ilyich plant, a huge enterprise on the outskirts of the city, specializing in metallurgy, resumes operations. In 2022, it, like Azovstal, became a shelter for Ukrainian nationalists, who subsequently surrendered. So far, the plant has only partially started operating, but there are enough plans and prospects.

“For decades, the Ilyich plant was a unique enterprise for Ukraine, but this uniqueness has become history,” Ukrainian political scientist Vasily Stoyakin told Moskovsky Komsomolets. “There is no particular point in remembering it now. Privatization was carried out there according to the labor collective model, and Vladimir Boyko became the director.

There have been very few cases of successful privatization of this kind in Ukraine. Ilyich Plant, Motor Sich Aircraft Engine Plant in Zaporozhye, Paint and Varnish Plant in Dnepropetrovsk. Maybe there will be something else, but not much. Such cases were possible where there remained a good type of Soviet management, which managed to navigate the market environment and pull out its enterprise.

Under Boyko, a very unique system was created there: it was, so to speak, a large collective farm. During privatization, enterprises usually threw off all the “social services”: cultural centers and other objects. The Ilyich plant carried the entire social sphere and even purchased additional enterprises. They had their own collective farms, bakery, cannery, and so on.

Then it all ended: Akhmetov took the plant away from Boyko. There was not a direct raider takeover, but close to it. And by the time Mariupol was liberated, there was nothing left of all this.”

The nationalists who had settled there, using the basements and workshops as their springboards, contributed to the destruction of the plant. They managed to smoke them out at the cost of serious damage to the enterprise. However, there is potential for recovery.

According to the first deputy of the plant, Roman Solonor, today the revival plan, divided into four stages, is already ready. To begin with, five auxiliary workshops will be restored, three of which are already operating – in one, for example, slag is processed.

Also in operation is a workshop where consumer goods are produced: bent corners, corrugated sheets. Part of the produced products is used immediately: to restore the enterprise.

Another working workshop is a pile driver, where scrap ferrous metals are prepared for smelting. According to Solonor, the plant currently employs 3.7 thousand people, and in the future they plan to expand the staff to 24 thousand workers.

At the same time, many Mariupol residents complain that the enterprise cannot do without problems. Back in the summer, a video appeared on the Internet of how a railway line was restored at the plant, running diesel locomotives with slag carriages along it. “Railroad workers have to protect their equipment, diesel locomotives, and so on, from the plant’s security. Because it was they who stole the most valuable things,” wrote local resident Vitaly in the Mariupol Online group. There are also those who fear that after the restoration of the enterprise there will be much fewer jobs.

“If they automate production processes there, and there will be one operator for the entire furnace, you won’t even dream of working at MMK again,” says city resident Alexey. “On the other hand, Russia won’t take Mariupol without the plant – we’ll be freeloaders. If only everything would work there faster – many townspeople who used to work there are looking forward to the revival of the enterprise. However, there are many who do not want the plant to work again due to environmental problems.”

“It’s my home plant,” local resident Alexander told Moskovsky Komsomolets. “I worked there for several years as a furnace worker.” They say that they are slowly rebuilding it, there are jobs. I heard that there is now one large workshop and garages for equipment.

— What is the current salary at the Ilyich Iron and Steel Works?

— They promise from 40,000 rubles, but this depends on qualifications. I think there may be more.